Techno-economic analysis of high-temperature PEM fuel cells integration in cogeneration systems

High temperature Proton-Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) can replace fossil fuels based heat generation units thanks to their co-produced heat, depending on temperature levels required by users. Indeed, PEMFC can be seen as cogenerative units which can be exploited to mitigate CO2 emissions and improve overall system cogeneration efficiency. Nonetheless, their technical limit is mainly due to the temperature level which can be achieved, besides economic feasibility in the present scenario. In this sense, the aim of the work is to compare different heating providing technologies, including PEMFC, Heat Pumps (HP) and Heat Only Boilers (HOB) to benchmark those simple solutions against PEMFC systems integration with HP or HOB. Levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and Levelized cost of heat (LCOH) are assessed, in order to conduct a fair comparison. Moreover, the overall cogeneration efficiency of different integrated systems relying on the single technologies is evaluated. The technical and economic comparison is performed as function of power capacity and required temperature, ranking the technology by suitability. Indeed, this can limit the applicability of PEMFC integrated with HP, thus leading to a lower overall cogeneration efficiency. Several fuel composition and cost are used to assess the economic impact of the compared solutions. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to assess present and future scenario result uncertainty. PEMFC based CHP systems feature a higher cogeneration efficiency, but their economic feasibility turns out to be still challenging. In near future they might be competitive with traditional solutions.